since we were about thirteen and after the
match a few of us were hanging round a racket-ball court, just
talking. He started telling me that he practised with people like
Carlos Moya, one of the Spaniards on the tour ranked in the
World Top 10. He said he'd never beaten him, never even
broken his serve, but it was significant that he was playing him
at all.
I started thinking. And steaming. I never got the chance to
practise with Tim Henman. I didn't even meet him properly
until I was sixteen. I went home and said to Mum: 'Rafa Nadal
is practising with Moya! And I'm having to practise with a few
county-level players, my brother and my mum. Rafa's out in
the sun all day – he hardly goes to school and he's playing four
and a half hours a day. I'm playing four and a half hours a
week. It's not enough!'
That's when it began, my determination to go and live in
another country, possibly Spain. We went over to look at a
couple of Academies, one run by the Catalan Tennis
Federation and then the Sanchez-Casal Tennis Academy at the
Open Sports Club in Barcelona. It even occurred to me to try
the Harry Hopman School at Saddlebrook in the USA that I
remembered so well from my Orange Bowl win in 1999. I was
due to spend a month there in May 2002. However, the night
before I was due to leave for Florida, I was playing a game of
football for a team called Auchterarder Primrose as a bit of fun
and I had just run three-quarters of the length of the pitch
when this guy, who was probably a bit fed up with me, stood
on my foot just as I was about to cross the ball. That was me
done for six weeks. Badly sprained ankle. I couldn't walk or
anything and I wasn't much fun because I had to sit around the
house doing nothing. I didn't even have an excuse not to do my
homework.
The Sanchez-Casal Academy was the one that attracted me
most. I went there with Mum to have a look around and played
a match against Emilio Sanchez, one of the founders of the
Academy and a five-times grand slam doubles champion. I beat
him 6–3 6–1. I loved it already. I was playing against a guy
who, even though he had retired a few years previously, had
been in the World Top 10, and had won a silver medal at the
1988 Olympics. I came off court dripping with sweat. I saw
loads of kids, good tennis players, all around me. This was
what I wanted.
I told Mum that I'd just beaten Emilio in straight sets and she
said: 'Andy, I'm not sure that was such a good idea.' But I
wanted to play really well against him to show I was a good
player. He didn't ban me; I enrolled at the Academy.
It hadn't been that hard a decision to go abroad. It wasn't
just what happened to Jamie. I didn't want to train at one of
the national centres in the UK because of the attitude of the
players and some of the coaches. That scene wasn't me. It was
the wrong environment. Everything is paid for and they're
spoiled and pretty lazy. Not every single player, but most. The
majority didn't want to be top tennis players, and it brings
everyone else down.
Everyone at Sanchez wanted to be there. They had all paid to be there. It cost about £25,000 a year plus competition costs
which I had to find from somewhere: sponsorships, the LTA,
sportscotland and my parents. I was lucky that during my time
there the Royal Bank of Scotland started to sponsor me and
have done ever since. It was, and still is, really difficult to
convince companies to invest in young players with potential
and RBS had never got involved with tennis before. But they
took a chance on me and I hope I have repaid their faith.
If I had stayed in Britain I would have been practising with
kids my age who didn't have the right attitude and there is a
chance I would have been spoiled myself. In Spain I was
practising with guys up to thirty years old, some of them
already on the Men's Tour, some who had just started, but all
of them with highish world rankings and ambition. To me, it
was perfect. I was fifteen and the next youngest guy to me
match a few of us were hanging round a racket-ball court, just
talking. He started telling me that he practised with people like
Carlos Moya, one of the Spaniards on the tour ranked in the
World Top 10. He said he'd never beaten him, never even
broken his serve, but it was significant that he was playing him
at all.
I started thinking. And steaming. I never got the chance to
practise with Tim Henman. I didn't even meet him properly
until I was sixteen. I went home and said to Mum: 'Rafa Nadal
is practising with Moya! And I'm having to practise with a few
county-level players, my brother and my mum. Rafa's out in
the sun all day – he hardly goes to school and he's playing four
and a half hours a day. I'm playing four and a half hours a
week. It's not enough!'
That's when it began, my determination to go and live in
another country, possibly Spain. We went over to look at a
couple of Academies, one run by the Catalan Tennis
Federation and then the Sanchez-Casal Tennis Academy at the
Open Sports Club in Barcelona. It even occurred to me to try
the Harry Hopman School at Saddlebrook in the USA that I
remembered so well from my Orange Bowl win in 1999. I was
due to spend a month there in May 2002. However, the night
before I was due to leave for Florida, I was playing a game of
football for a team called Auchterarder Primrose as a bit of fun
and I had just run three-quarters of the length of the pitch
when this guy, who was probably a bit fed up with me, stood
on my foot just as I was about to cross the ball. That was me
done for six weeks. Badly sprained ankle. I couldn't walk or
anything and I wasn't much fun because I had to sit around the
house doing nothing. I didn't even have an excuse not to do my
homework.
The Sanchez-Casal Academy was the one that attracted me
most. I went there with Mum to have a look around and played
a match against Emilio Sanchez, one of the founders of the
Academy and a five-times grand slam doubles champion. I beat
him 6–3 6–1. I loved it already. I was playing against a guy
who, even though he had retired a few years previously, had
been in the World Top 10, and had won a silver medal at the
1988 Olympics. I came off court dripping with sweat. I saw
loads of kids, good tennis players, all around me. This was
what I wanted.
I told Mum that I'd just beaten Emilio in straight sets and she
said: 'Andy, I'm not sure that was such a good idea.' But I
wanted to play really well against him to show I was a good
player. He didn't ban me; I enrolled at the Academy.
It hadn't been that hard a decision to go abroad. It wasn't
just what happened to Jamie. I didn't want to train at one of
the national centres in the UK because of the attitude of the
players and some of the coaches. That scene wasn't me. It was
the wrong environment. Everything is paid for and they're
spoiled and pretty lazy. Not every single player, but most. The
majority didn't want to be top tennis players, and it brings
everyone else down.
Everyone at Sanchez wanted to be there. They had all paid to be there. It cost about £25,000 a year plus competition costs
which I had to find from somewhere: sponsorships, the LTA,
sportscotland and my parents. I was lucky that during my time
there the Royal Bank of Scotland started to sponsor me and
have done ever since. It was, and still is, really difficult to
convince companies to invest in young players with potential
and RBS had never got involved with tennis before. But they
took a chance on me and I hope I have repaid their faith.
If I had stayed in Britain I would have been practising with
kids my age who didn't have the right attitude and there is a
chance I would have been spoiled myself. In Spain I was
practising with guys up to thirty years old, some of them
already on the Men's Tour, some who had just started, but all
of them with highish world rankings and ambition. To me, it
was perfect. I was fifteen and the next youngest guy to me
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